Putter training guide

ABSTRACT

A straight cylindrical guide bar is horizontally supported about 9 inches from the ground level on a flat foot stand on which the traineee stands facing said bar with a putter club in his hands. Secured to the club shaft at right angles with the plane of the club head is a circular plate. With said plate allowed to rest by gravity rearwardly in constant sliding horizontal straight line contact with said guide the trainee practices putting a golf ball along a path forward from and parallel with said guide bar. A wire pointer adjustable mounted on one end of said guide bar is adjusted to overlie said path and assist the trainee in aligning himself and the apparatus with said path before putting.

United States Patent Fahy 1 Aug. 22, 1972 [54] PUTTER TRAINING GUIDEFOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS [7 Inventor: Robert Eaton Fahy, 501Sunset 26,125 1905 Great Britain ..273/192 P 3405.Banning,C11lif- 92220175,197 2/1922 Great Britain ..273/192 22 Filed: June 1, 1971 pp No: 7Prlmary Examiner-George J. Marlo Related US. Application Data [63]Continuation of Ser. No. 859,487, Sept. 19,

1969, abandoned.

[52] US. Cl. ..273/l92, 273/187 R [51 Int. Cl. ..A63b 69/36 [58] Fieldof Search ..273/l91,192, 186,194

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,132,865 5/1964 Parker..273/192 2,303,736 12/1942 Hall ..273/192 X 2,723,858 11/1955 Chizewski..273/192 3,269,733 8/1966 Taddie et a1 ..273/192 X 3,424,462 l/l969Driscoll ..273/194 R X 3,473,810 10/ l 969 Nishikawa ..273/l92Attorney-Dania E. Keech 5 7] ABSTRACT A straight cylindrical guide baris horizontally supported about 9 inches'from the ground level ona flatfoot stand on which the traineee stands facing said bar 1 Claim, 4Drawing Figures PU'I'IER TRAINING GUIDE This application is acontinuation of application Ser. No. 859,487 Sept. 19, 1969, nowabandoned.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION As in other departments of golf, perfection inputting is achieved only with intense study of the various factorsinvolved and long and patient practice in setting up correct habitpatterns in executing the putting stroke. One of the fundamentalrequirements of this stroke is that the head of the club be held atright angles to the path of the stroke throughout the stroke. Another isthat the direction traveled by the club head must be in that particularstraight path and with just that amount of force correctly estimated tobe necessary to land the ball in the cup.

The principal object of the present invention is to provide training forall golfers, skilled and unskilled, in establishing kinaesthetic habitpatterns in putting so they will subconsciously and simultaneously swingthe club in a plane parallel with the path along which it is aimed toputt the ball and hold the club head at right angles to this paththroughout the putting stroke.

It is another object of the invention to provide a simple puttertraining apparatus which is relatively light in weight, inexpensive tomanufacture and may be used on any kind of a surface particularly on aputting green or lawn without injuring the latter in any way.

Yet another object is to provide such an apparatus which includes a footstand on which the trainee stands while practicing putting therewith inwhich the stand supports the trainee on practically the same level hewould stand on if he was standing directly on the supporting green sothat when he is practicing putting with the apparatus, habit patternsset up will be in harmony with his subsequent experience in puttingwithout the use of the apparatus.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a fragmentary frontelevational view of a golf putter equipped with the guide plate of theinvention and positioned as used in putting practice with the guide barand foot stand of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a vertical sectional view taken on the line 2-2 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a horizontal sectional view taken at a reduced scale on theline 33 of FIG. 2, and showing, in plan, the guide bar and foot standand alignment indicator of the invention.

FIG. 4 is an exploded view of the guide plate and attaching clampassociated therewith in attaching said plate to a putter.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION invention includes a foot stand 16preferably including a U-shaped frame 17 made of aluminum tubing aboutone inch in diameter and having a spacer rod 18 for spacing side members19 of the frame 17. Tautly stretched between the side members 19 andriveted or cemented to sad members are fabric web bands 20 on which atrainee can stand but which are flexible enough to permit the bands 20to stretch so that the weight of I the trainee is supported on whateversurface the foot stand 16 rests upon such as the turf of a golf links.

Front end portions of side members 19 are bent upwardly to formforwardly inclined posts 25, on upper ends of which is fixed cylindricaltubular horizontal guide bar 26. This bar extends both to the right andto the left beyond the frame 17 approximately as shown in FIG. 3 and theright hand end of this bar has an apertured plug 27 in which isfrictionally mounted the hook shaped end portion 28 of a sighting wireor alignment indicator 29 which is disposed parallel with the bar 26.The hook shaped portion 28 of sighting wire 29 is normally placed in ahorizontal plane as shown in full lines in FIG. 2 but it is adapted tobe frictionally adjusted about the axis of its mounting on tubular guidebar 26, as shown in broken lines in FIG. 2, so that the sighting wire 29will be positioned varying distances from the vertical plane containingthe bar 26.

The putter training guide 10 also includes a flat guide plate 30 whichis preferably made of aluminum in the form of a disc and is secured tothe shaft 13 of the putter club 11 by a clamp 31. This clamp is formedof two aluminum blocks 32 and 33 which are channeled at 34 to fit theshaft 13 and are provided with holes 35 for receiving screws 40 whichare extended freely through said holes and then screw into tapped holes41 pro vided in the guide plate 30. Outer ends of holes 35 in block 32are counter sunk to receive the heads of the screws 40.

The plate 30 and clamp 31 are applied to the shaft 13 of the putter club11 as shown in FIGS. 1, 2, and 3 so that the plane of the plate 30 willbe in right angled relation with the plane of the putter club head 12,and with the plate at a location on shaft 13 approximately as shown inFIGS. 1 and 2. This causes the plate 30 to gravitate rearwardly intohorizontal single line engagement with the cylindrical surface of theguide bar 26 when the trainee stands on the foot stand 16 and practicesputting with the club 11 held in the positions illustrated in these twofigures.

The present invention does not limit the trainee to taking anyparticular position in putting or to any particular technique of holdingthe putter or swinging the same, the use of this invention beingflexible so that the putter club can be held at various angles ofinclination in putting, and each golfer using the invention as a puttingtraining device may get the benefits of the invention without changinghis putting style in any way. This flexibility of the device 10 resultsfrom the fact that no matter how the club 11, in putting practise, maydeviate from vertical in the planes of FIG. 1 or FIG. 2, the contactconstantly maintained between the flat guide plate 30 and thecylindrical guide bar 26 is exclusively along a horizontal straight line50, illustrated by a dotted line in FIG. 1.

The purpose and function of the putter training guide 10 is to give thetrainee the feeling and produce a set of subconscious kinaestheticimages in his sensory-motor system by his use of this device which willtend to inculcate good habits in putting when he removes the guide plate30 from his putter and proceeds to putt in the normal manner, withoutany aid, as required by golfing rules. The traits which the guide 10aims to inculcate in gles to the direction in which the trainee isaiming to putt the ball, and secondly to swing the putter throughoutthestroke in a plane which is parallel with that direction.

Another thing that is accomplished by the putter training guide is tocompel the trainee, when practicing putting with this guide, to swingthe club in a plane parallel with the direction he has planned forputting the ball and to hold the putter head at right angles to thisdirection throughout the swing of the club and thus demonstrate to thetrainee the beneficial results of including these two factors in hisputting technique. Much more accurate putting may be accomplished intraining with the guide 10 than without the guide, particularly wherethe trainee is a novice. It will thus demonstrate to the trainee hisneed for incorporating in his free skill in puttingthe factorsmechanically added to his putting technique by the guide 10 while he isbeing assisted by this guide in putting practice.

Another substantial advantage of the guide 10 is the construction of thefoot stand 16 so that the trainee stands on the ground or turf levelbecause of the flexibility of the web bands 20 so that there is nochange in the level on which the trainee stands with respect to thesurface he is putting on when he switches from putting with the aid ofthe guide 10 and putting without such aid.

While the present invention preferably makes use of an aluminum disc 30rigidly attached to the club shaft 13 for making constant horizontalstraight line contact with guide bar 26, it is to be understood thatvarious mechanical equivalents might be substituted for this shaft. Itis of course desirable to keep the weight of the guide plate means 30 aslow as possible so as not to materially increase the effort required ofpracticing with the invention from that which is required in normalputting.

I claim:

l. A putter training guide adapted for use in conjunction with a golfputter club having a putter head, a shaft and a handle, for guiding saidclub, throughout a normal practice putting stroke, solely by a straighthorizontal line of contact between stationary and by a horizontalstraight line contact-between said lte dsaid i th rizontalb an aiign rhent imii t wiie adjusta iy mounted on one end of said guide bar toextend forwardly therefrom and then parallel with said guide bar tooverlie the area in which the putting stroke takes place to permit thetrainee to align the guide bar in parallelism with the path along whichit is desired to propel the ball in putting the same; and

means for adjustably varying the horizontal space between said wire andthe vertical plane of said guide bar, while keeping said wire parallelwith said bar.

against said guide bar

1. A putter training guide adapted for use in conjunction with a golfputter club having a putter head, a shaft and a handle, for guiding saidclub, throughout a normal practice putting stroke, solely by a straighthorizontal line of contact between stationary and movable elementsembodied in said guide, said guide comprising: a straight guide barsubstantially exceeding in length said putting stroke; support means forrigidly supporting said guide bar in a suitable elevated stationaryhorizontal position; a flat guide plate; means for securing said guideplate to the shaft of said club parallel with said shaft and in a rightangular relation with the plane of the putter head and at a height onsaid shaft at which said plate may be rested rearwardly against saidguide bar throughout said practice stroke, said plate guiding said clubthroughout said stroke, by a horizontal straight line contact betweensaid plate and said straight horizontal bar; an alignment indicator wireadjustably mounted on one end of said guide bar to extend forwardlytherefrom and then parallel with said guide bar to overlie the area inwhich the putting stroke takes place to permit the trainee to align theguide bar in parallelism with the path along which it is desired topropel the ball in putting the same; and means for adjustably varyingthe horizontal space between said wire and the vertical plane of saidguide bar, while keeping said wire parallel with said bar.